Sometimes when I click “Add ID” the species search box doesn’t “activate”, and if I start typing a taxon beginning with “A” it adds an ID in agreement even if I don’t actually agree. Does this happen to anyone else? It’s driving me bonkers today. Would it be possible to turn off shortcut keys other than the arrow keys (which are useful for scrolling)?
Quick clarification: would it be possible for users to have the option of turning off shortcut keys other than arrow keys?
If you’re about to type a name, type i before it to focus to the active box immediately. It’s like an agree shield. ;)
I love the “a” shortcut - without it, my identifying would be immeasurably slower. Ok, maybe 7x slower.
More broadly, I think the Identify modal is really designed to be used with shortcut keys. It might be possible to turn all shortcuts on or off, but I think picking and choosing which shortcuts are active would be challenging to implement on the iNat side. Though I think that turning off all shortcuts would largely defeat the purpose of Identify. And users can always create custom shortcuts of their own to implement with some of the programs for that that are available.
I sometimes have this problem, except instead of clicking “Add ID” I press “I”. So I usually only have this when I accidentally type “AI” instead of “IA”. Perhaps adding the “I” shortcut would help avoid this?
Where would I find a list of the shortcuts? I never knew there were any until just this week.
YES! I wish I could kill that button. I think we tried asking to be able to turn off keyboard shortcuts a couple years ago and it was shot down. But maybe try again?
I use the identify modal because it help me work through my focus taxon quickly without having to open a ton of tabs (and it’s easier to use the zoom and brightening enhancement features), but I never use the shortcuts. Since I’m usually one of the first people to offer a species or genus-level ID, I rarely find myself agreeing with the previous ID, which is often family level, or if species-level, often wrong.
Okay, I just now discovered that there was such a keyboard shortcut. I’m so used to clicking on the “identify” or “comment” button, as the case may be, it never occurred to me to type any key without doing so.
You could try making a feature request.
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/how-to-turn-off-keyboard-shortcuts-on-identify/17492
I’m suddenly realising I think I’ve probably accidentally pressed several of these without noticing when I haven’t managed to click the box properly before typing the species name. I only knew about using the arrows to go back and forth prior to now.
edit: I just realised there are shortcuts for annotations too which should be helpful for doing that more efficiently at least. It’s a lot easier for me to press 2 buttons on the keyboard without misclicking and selecting the wrong option
Quite the opposite! It’s the best part of the identify tab, in my opinion. Shortcuts are such a massive time saver. Yes, there are many times where you need to suggest a finer ID, but that’s what the ‘i’ shortcut is for. I would even like to add more shortcuts. Especially one for answering ‘yes’ or (especially) 'no" to the question ‘Based on the evidence, can the Community Taxon still be confirmed or improved?’ It would make it so much easier to make genus-level observations research grade
I use exactly the same approach (move through focal taxon everyday without tabs), I just use the shortcuts, including those for zooming and brightness, to do so - very fast and efficient. I use the “I” shortcut when I add a non-agreeing ID which I find much faster than using the mouse to click in the GUI.
You can always make a Feature Request to add an option to turn off all shortcuts in Identify (maybe a sticky user parameter?). I can find lots of previous feature requests for adding or modifying shortcuts in Identify, many of which have been accepted/resolved, but I can’t find a record of one to turn off all shortcuts as @thomaseverest mentioned.
I have zero problem with the A shortcut and only just found out about it because of this post. Thank you, so very very much.
This is a good idea, thanks.
